Confessions of a Former School Teacher, Part 5

Rule #6: Sometimes the Answer is E

You know how when you are taking a test and there are multiple choices, option E is none of the above? If you are like me, option E is the scary one. You have to be pretty darn sure that you know the material well enough to rule out the other answers that are already provided. If it's a math test (math and I have a liking problem), I can tell you that my heart just about stops when I work out a problem and the answer is not even  close to the ones given. This is when I usually think, "I screwed this one up terribly!" But life is not a test. In medicine there is a fairly famous saying that goes, "If you hear hoof-beats, don't assume zebras." This makes sense in medicine. Almost every symptom can be caused by multiple things, so you rule out the most common things first, then you move to the rare. But medicine is not life. Where would life be without zebras? This lesson I first was taught as a teacher, but there are many applications. 

I had a student my first year teaching. Let's call him Blonde Boy. Now, Blonde Boy had been acting out for about a month. His grades were dropping, he was getting into trouble, and he was being very ornery. If life were a multiple choice test and the question was what is causing Blonde Boy to get into so much trouble, the answers may have gone like this. A) There is trouble at home, B)He's a bad kid who likes to cause trouble, C) The work is too hard for him, or D) He's lazy.  Now, as his teacher, I wanted the best choice (as my current instructors always say). What this means is that one or more choices could work, but they are not the best option. The best option here: E-none of the above. I met with Blonde Boy's mom. She was worried the work was too hard or maybe he needed counseling. "He's bored, " I told her. I told her that Blonde Boy was very capable and very intelligent, and that despite the grades I would like to move him into my advanced  math and reading groups, after talking with him. She consented, though surprised. I told Blonde Boy the next day that I knew he was bored because the work was too easy, and I was going to be challenging him from then on. I told him he could do it, and that if he didn't it would be because he was being lazy, not because he wasn't capable. Blonde Boy excelled, and Blonde Boy's mom loved me, because she told me that I got her son to like school again. 

My husband also calls this "hidden option E," because it isn't always apparent. Perhaps he has offered to take care of dinner and the choices are A) spaghetti, B)steak, C) grilled cheese, or D) soup and salad. Well, hidden option E is take wife out to a nice dinner, and it will almost always win! :)

So, that girl that never talks to you? Maybe it isn't that she is stuck-up, dumb, witchy or uninteresting, maybe it's E, none of the above. Maybe she is shy, smart and very talented, and you'd never know unless you took a chance. Life is all about figuring out your choices, and then making your own if the given ones don't suit you. I could've stayed a teacher, I could have done other things with my degree like counseling or social work, or I could have become an administrator (all of these would have been logical steps with the combination of education and experience I have), or I could look at the choices, and choose none of the above. As Robert Frost (one of my personal favorite poets) would say: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.